Why I Dont Write, Susan Minot
Why I Dont Write, Susan Minot
List: $15.00 | Sale: $10.50
Club: $7.50

Why I Don't Write
And Other Stories

Author: Susan Minot

Narrator: Alex McKenna, Kristen Sieh, Andrew Eiden

Unabridged: 4 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/04/2020


Synopsis

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A “clear-eyed and fearless” (The New York Times Book Review) collection of ten short stories from the award-winning author of Evening

“Tender, precise, emotional, insightful, and funny.”—JULIANNE MOORE
 
A writer dryly catalogs the myriad reasons she cannot write; an artist bicycles through a protest encampment in lower Manhattan and ruminates on an elusive lover; an old woman on her deathbed calls out for a man other than her husband; a hapless fifteen-year-old boy finds himself in sexual peril; two young people in the 1990s fall helplessly in love, then bicker just as helplessly, tortured by jealousy and mistrust.
 
In each of these stories Susan Minot explores the difficult geometry of human relations, the lure of love and physical desire, and the lifelong quest for meaning and connection. Her characters are all searching for truth, in feeling and in action, as societal norms are upended and justice and coherence flounder.
 
Urgent and immediate, stunningly observed, deeply felt, and gorgeously written, the stories in Why I Don't Write showcase an author at the top of her form.

“Intimate, adventurous, stark and lyrical . . . Few short story collections shine as brightly.”—Portland Press-Herald

About The Author

Susan Minot is an award-winning novelist, short-story writer, poet, and screenwriter. Her first novel, Monkeys, was published in a dozen countries and won the Prix Femina Étranger in France. Her novel Evening was a worldwide bestseller and became a major motion picture. She lives with her daughter in New York City and on an island off the coast of Maine.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Holly on December 04, 2020

The thing about a collection of short stories is that I always end up loving a few of them and hating the rest. This book proves no different. A couple of the stories are excellent, a couple others were pretty good; the rest were complete garbage.......more

Goodreads review by Davida on July 25, 2020

While some of these stories deserve 5/5 stars, others were just... well... strange. Although this is an inconsistent collection, it certainly is interesting. Read more in my review here. [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Deborah on November 21, 2020

I’m a fan of Minot’s writing, but this story collection is quite uneven. The good stories are exceptional, but there is one story that’s just a weird, unreadable turkey. Minot is far from prolific, and the title story “Why I Don’t Write,” is a wry riff, made up of discrete one- or two-sentence burst......more

Goodreads review by Michelle on February 16, 2021

In her latest collection of stories, Susan Minot rages artfully against distraction of political and other varieties. . The stories are as sharp and elliptical as the sentences. If you've been a fan since way back (Lust & Other Stories), this one won't disappoint.......more

Goodreads review by Kathie on December 26, 2020

This collection is wonderfully eclectic, providing a variety of storylines and characters. The title story was my particular favorite. Some of the stories didn't feel finished to me - they dropped off as if the writer simply ran out of interest. This disappointed me; the stories had my attention, but......more


Quotes

"Searing... Minot's lyricism is all her own... Minot still has a poet’s instinct for the surprising volta, the striking image, the bracing final line. After 30 years away from the short story, it is good to have her back, cleareyed and fearless as ever, whispering difficult truths and ambiguities that a less assured writer would feel compelled to shout."
--The New York Times

"Sterling... Pristine... fully formed, often erotic, gorgeous, and searing.,.Minot isexceptionally attuned to forces intimate and social, and her gift for potent distillation yields storiesthat are stunning in every sense of the word."
--Booklist